


Narrative Lost

by RoyHankins



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Toxic Affection, Unhealthy Relationships, Villainous protagonist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29851488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyHankins/pseuds/RoyHankins
Summary: Tsumugi Shirogane was living her best life. Until, as everything went off the rails, she wasn't.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Shirogane Tsumugi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

Everything was going  _ perfectly. _

The season had begun with the sixteen actors waking up on the set, dazed and confused, unchanged aside from giving them their characters’ names.

It was something that they’d been doing for a few seasons, just as a little sneak peak for the audience, letting them see how completely different the characters would be from the people playing them.

After a preview of the Exisals and the return of the Monokubs, the costumes were distributed and the Flashback Lights were used to turn boring actors into the characters fans would love.

Well, all aside from Tsumugi. She got a Light too, of course, but that just gave her a few mental tweaks and an Ultimate ability. No memory replacement for her.

Then, the real beginning.

It was so easy for Tsumugi to get into character, pretending to be a dull, spacey, geek girl. Kaede had thought she was losing focus thinking about something trivial, completely unaware that Tsumugi was thinking the entire time of just where the season would go from there.

It had been rather nice to be admired by a potential protagonist. Tsumugi even briefly hoped they might get a romance subplot together, but had to admit to herself it was unlikely.

From there, the first day went mostly as they’d expected. Monokuma appeared, the rules were explained, Kaede rallied everyone into action, the decoy exit broke their spirits, and cracks started to show in group cohesion.

If she was being honest, Tsumugi had doubted a Motive as strong as the First Blood Perk was really needed, but she’d been overruled by the senior writers. And, she had to admit, they’d been right. As far as they could tell, no one had even started planning a murder, and fans watching the livestreams were never happy when it took too long to get to the action.

Especially with that season’s livestream gimmick, letting them watch out of the robot’s eyes.

The ‘death’ of Monokuma had been all Tsumugi, though. What better way to properly pivot into despair than to give them another little chance at hope?

It had been impossible for her to sleep. Going over how the season had been going thus far, thinking about all the different ways it could turn out...

That was the real beauty of it. Even Tsumugi, who had written a quarter of the cast and was  _ even getting to play the Mastermind _ didn’t know what was going to happen. They wrote the characters, put them in the sandbox, and let them play. Oh sure, the rules and the Motives guided them, along with some subtle programming in their new personalities, but that didn’t mean anything, not really.

_ This _ was why Danganronpa was the greatest series ever made.

In what felt like no time at all, the morning bell rang, and Tsumugi grinned looking at the monitor in her room, ready for it to turn on. Just like the night before, it would just be Monodam there to greet them, making the characters wonder where the rest of the robots were.

But...it never turned on. Tsumugi frowned. Was something wrong with the monitor in her room?

Panic started to rise in her chest, but she swallowed it down. This wouldn’t be a problem. It  _ couldn’t _ be a problem. This was going to be the best season of Danganronpa,  _ her _ season of Danganronpa. It would go down as an all-time classic of the franchise, and Tsumugi Shirogane would be remembered as the one who made it so great.

That was worth dying for.

Getting up from her bed, still dressed in the clothes she’d been wearing the day before, Tsumugi took a moment in the bathroom to make sure she looked TV ready, then headed out.

She’d been planning on stopping by the Control Room anyway, so it wasn’t like she was freaking out. She wasn’t. Everything was fine.

Steps away from reaching the bathroom, someone grabbed her by the shoulder, causing Tsumugi to jump, screaming, “Ahhh!!”

“Oh, sorry,” Kaede apologized, now standing at Tsumugi’s side. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” Then, looking at the hand still on Tsumugi’s shoulder, Kaede pulled it back and held her hands palm up. “Do you have an issue with people touching you? I know I was poking you yesterday, and that bothered you, but I didn’t-”

“It’s fine.” Tsumugi was sure that came out sounding bland and dismissive, rather than annoyed. Because she wasn’t annoyed. Sure, it had startled her, but Tsumugi wouldn’t ever really be mad at Kaede touching her.

Kaede was easily the best character in the cast, and it wasn’t only Tsumugi who thought so. Nearly every fan poll in the lead-up to the season had her placed in the top three. Tsumugi was always near the bottom, but she was fine with that. Her role was meant to go under the radar, after all. Thanks to the fact that all her writing credits were under a pseudonym, no one in the fandom knew she was really the Mastermind.

She was just about to excuse herself to go into the restroom, when Kaede asked, “Isn’t it strange that there was no morning announcement?”

All thoughts of retreating to the Control Room blanked out of Tsumugi’s head. “What?” she asked, sure she must have heard her incorrectly.

Tilting her head a bit to one side, Kaede replied, “The announcement, there wasn’t one this morning. I know Monokuma’s gone, but one of the Monokubs still did the nighttime announcement last night. It just doesn’t feel right...” Kaede started walking to the Dining Room, and Tsumugi found herself following her.

It hadn’t...it hadn’t just been her room? No one had gotten an announcement?

Sure enough, as the characters all gathered for the morning, their chatter made it obvious that the broadcast never went out.

Tsumugi avoided saying much in the conversation, as her mind tried to make sense of this. Had the Kubs’ AI malfunctioned? Or was there an error with the monitor system? If so, it wouldn’t be a big deal. The effects team could take care of it with the Nanokumas. The swarm of nanobots weren’t just for filming, they could also handle some small repair work. If it was bad enough, they might send it actual repair people while the characters were all asleep.

But that wouldn’t matter. In no time, the Monokuma she’d made shortly after the last one was destroyed would arrive, dressed like a Yokai, and it would become clear to the whole cast that the Killing Game hadn’t ended.

Not only that, but Monokuma would drop an additional Motive. This wasn’t something done often, but according to the higher ups, they thought it was needed. It was a bit much, in Tsumugi’s opinion. Time limit Motives were usually used later in a season, but something about how the game was starting was bugging them, and she didn’t have the power to deny them. Even the Mastermind was subservient to Team Danganronpa.

Plus, as a fan, she could appreciate how it would feel to the audience. More pressure, making the first killing an even bigger event. The betting pools on who the first killer would be would probably become even more competitive.

It was only once people started to disperse that Tsumugi realized it.

Monokuma...had never shown up. Neither had the Monokubs. The restrained panic from before came back, stronger.

There was no way for Tsumugi to deny it any longer: this wasn’t according to plan.

Excusing herself from the few who remained, having missed most of the conversation they’d had, Tsumugi nearly sprinted to the girls’ bathroom, and from there, into her secret Control Room.

Where everything was pitch black.

“Motherkuma?” she asked, hoping to see the figure light up in reaction to the Mastermind’s voice. But it stayed dead. Everything stayed dead. In a flash of terror, Tsumugi ran over to the metal head and slammed a fist into it. “ _ Motherkuma?! _ ”

This was becoming too much. Tsumugi slammed her fist into it, again and again and again, ignoring the pain it began to bring her. How was she supposed to be the Mastermind with a Control Room that didn’t work?!

“Tsumugi?” A voice came from the machine as its eyes lit up, but it wasn’t the voice Tsumugi expected. It wasn’t Motherkuma, it was...

Blinking back tears she hadn’t even realized had started to form, Tsumugi asked, disbelieving, “Akira? Is that you?” What was another writing intern doing using Motherkuma to contact her? Normally, only the Director or Head Writer did that.

A sigh came across the connection. “Thank god you’re here. I was getting scared you wouldn’t come...” Then he took a deep breath, and told her, “Tsumugi, you’ve got to listen to me, we don’t have a lot of time.”

“What’s going on?!” Tsumugi asked, frantic to get some sort of answer. “Nothing is going right! There was no morning announcement, and Monokuma never showed up, and-”

“Season 53 is being mothballed.” It sounded like he said the words through gritted teeth, through whether that came from fury or frustration Tsumugi didn’t know. “The first episode never got released, and the livestream was shut down last night. It’s over.”

His words didn’t make any sense. “We...we got cancelled?” How was that possible? "But...the world  _ runs _ on Danganronpa!"

Akira laughed, though Tsumugi didn’t find anything about this funny. “Tsumugi, I know you love it, but it's just a show." Of course. It had always been just a paycheck for him. "And I wish we’d been cancelled. Team Danganronpa, hell, all of Spike Chunsoft is getting audited. Assets frozen, employees furloughed, all projects shut down until further notice.”

“How?! Why?” An idea came to her. “Don’t tell me a lawsuit from one of those protest groups actually-”

There were actually quite a few people out there who found what Danganronpa did morally questionable, though Tsumugi thought they were all oversensitive crybabies. But Akira interrupted her, clarifying, “No, it wasn’t them.” It took him a moment to say anything else, he must have been searching for the right words. “See, it turns out...not all the money in our budget comes from  _ legal _ sources.”

She blinked. “Money laundering?”

“Yeah, I never would have guessed it, but apparently there was some shady stuff behind the scenes. That’s the big thing, but I heard the list of charges against some of the top brass is huge.” It was hard for Tsumugi to avoid rolling her eyes at that. As if most of the people at the top of companies like theirs weren’t terrible people.

But that didn’t...”They’re really cancelling the season? Over that?” Her mind was still trying to process it, and Tsumugi wasn’t really angry about it anymore. In fact, she felt almost empty. “Who cares where the money comes from? Can’t we get other investors?” These were such banal problems, surely they had banal solutions.

There was a grunt on the other end, and Akira started sounding annoyed. “Tsumugi, you don’t get it: the season is cancelled, period, end of story.”

She wanted to continue arguing, but he’d said there was some sort of time limit, so she cut to the real point. “When am I getting out?”

The silence afterwards was deafening.

“Akira, when am I getting out?”

“You’re not.” He didn’t sound happy about it. “Tsumugi, there’s no money left. Getting any of you out of the set mid-season isn’t cheap, and there’s nowhere for all the characters to go.” The sets were always built in isolated environments, so even if something went wrong, there was no risk of contamination. “The word from on-high is, you’re all staying down there. Indefinitely.”

For some strange reason, Tsumugi found her lungs weren’t taking in oxygen properly. She couldn’t even ask him why he’d make a terrible joke like that, because that would have required being able to speak.

She was slowly forced to accept he wasn’t joking when he added, “Listen, you’ll be okay. There are enough resources in the Ultimate Academy system to last you guys nearly a century, so you won’t have to worry about dying of hunger or thirst. Still, you’ll need to be careful about Kore-”

Before he could get out the sentence, Tsumugi lashed out. “Akira, what are you talking about?!! They can’t just leave me down here! I’m...I’m a  _ person _ !! I can’t stay down here with them!” She didn’t know if she sounded angry or terrified or depressed, and she didn’t really care. The emotions were elbowing for space in her heart, fighting a battle for supremacy that had no clear winner.

“Tsumugi,” Akira told her, sounding like a parent reproaching their bratty kid, “you knew the risks when you went in there. Anything could happen, your life was always going to be on the line. Hell, now that there's no Killing Game, you're actually  _ safer _ than you were before!" He was starting to get exasperated. "The only real changes is that now there's no incentive for murder and there's no one watching."

_ But that was the entire point. _ Tsumugi was more than ready to put her life on the line for the best franchise in history. But living a whole life there, no one watching, and no ability to affect the world? What was the point?

She didn't try to explain any of that to him, there was no point. Akira had never understood her. "Can't you pull some strings, find some way to sneak me out?"

"Ha," he barked, anger seeping into his tone. "Tsumugi, I am  _ already _ pulling strings for you. That's what this call is."

"You really used all the influence you had, and the best you could get me was telling me how  _ fucked _ I am?" Why had she ever called this waste of a writing credit her friend?

"Wow, fuck you too." Tsumugi regretted her words immediately. If she wasn't getting so emotional, she was sure she could manipulate him, she knew what buttons to push. But that chance was slipping away. "They wanted to sever the connection and leave you to rot, but  _ I _ had to beg and plead and give a tech guy ten thousand yen just to contact you."

Taking a long, deep breath, Tsumugi centered herself. "Akira, I'm sorry. I'm just...this is a lot, but I appreciate what you've done for me so far." Just a little more honey, a little more of the plain and innocent Tsumugi he liked so much, and she'd have him where she needed him. "I understand you're in a hard position, but I would really appreciate it if you could just double check and see if there's anything else you can do? I'd  _ really _ owe you one."

When he didn't respond quickly, Tsumugi hoped it had worked. He was gullible, after all. It had to have landed..."Tsumugi, I'm sorry. I'll miss you."

Then, Motherkuma went dead once more, leaving Tsumugi alone in the dark.

"You...you  _ fucking asshole!!! _ " Tsumugi shouted, not caring if the soundproofing of the room couldn’t handle how loud she was being. "Go  _ suck a fuck _ ! I hope you die a virgin, you hack! When I get out of here, I'm going to..."

But Tsumugi's voice trailed off.

She sank to her knees, as her arms fell limply by her side.

That was it.

She was trapped, in a self-sustaining and inescapable set, with fifteen fictional characters, all of whom were  _ made _ to be capable of murder.

None of it was being broadcast.

Danganronpa was over.

Danganronpa was over.

Danganronpa was over.

As Tsumugi sat in the dark, that was the thought she found herself fixated on, the thing she couldn't get past. There would be no more Danganronpa, no more Monokuma, no more Killing Games.

There was no point to it now, in any of it.

What was she going to do?

What was even worth doing?

Nothing.

Tsumugi Shirogane had landed her dream job at 16, working for the best show in the world.

Tsumugi Shirogane had been ready to be a part of that show, as the Mastermind.

Tsumugi Shirogane had thrown her life away in pursuit of her passion, and she now knew it was going to slip away, day by day, month by month, year by year, in the worst way possible.

Plainly.


	2. Chapter 2

Everything was falling apart.

Tsumugi was trapped on the set, seemingly forever.

There was no more Danganronpa.

All the Mastermind equipment was shut down.

She had no Monokumas, no Monokubs, no surveillance systems...she’d even risked a trip to the classroom to look at the Flashback Light station, exposed though it may be, and it was inoperable.

The only advantage she had in staying alive around all these fictional characters was her Monopad.

Unlike everyone else’s, hers had special features, locked to her touch by a biometric signature. There weren’t nearly as many useful things on the tablet, her abilities as a Mastermind were still diminished, but...it was better than nothing.

Tsumugi was holed up in the Mastermind’s lair, it was the only safe place. She couldn’t feel secure in the dorm room with that lockpicking psychopath still out there. Just her, in the dark, looking at the only weapon that would still work.

Well, she did still have her Ultimate Cosplayer skills, but those didn’t seem incredibly useful.

Her eyes poured over the complete map of the school, including all the areas that hadn’t been unlocked. Tsumugi had all the items she needed to unlock them. The in-story excuse that the Monokubs were building them as they were needed was all just nonsense, after all. But how could she even do that? Everyone would be suspicious if she walked up with the items for no reason...she could claim she found them?

But would they really buy that?

She could unlock the areas in secret, and act surprised with the rest of them...but what if the Detective figured out the lie? What if she was caught?

For every possible failure scenario, Tsumugi couldn’t help imagining the repercussions. What would happen as the characters realized that she was their dreaded Mastermind. They would turn on her, attack her...she’d stand no chance against them, not without Exisals to back her up.

Reading their character files didn’t make her feel any more secure, but she forced herself to do it anyway.

She’d been given paper copies, which were hidden in a wall panel in the lair, and electronic copies on her tablet. The latter were what she was reading, seeing no need to go through the effort of digging out the physical versions.

There was a file on every character for the season, as well as one for her. Of course, hers was the thinnest, since she didn’t have a full mind imprint. That one just listed her fictional backstory and went over the small personality tweaks they’d made to her.

Tsumugi barely glanced at it. Her attention was reserved for the characters.

Reading and rereading the other files was mostly an exercise in How Not to Die, but distant tinglings of nostalgia still flared up.

This was supposed to be her big break. It was Tsumugi’s fourth season writing for a show, and after the success of her sidekick character in season 52, they had given her  _ four _ characters to write. A full quarter of the cast, in her control. Three of them had been rush jobs, if she was being honest, but one...one of them had been her masterpiece.

A potential protagonist.

But, c’est la vie, that was not to be. Now she, her wonderful creation, and the rest were stuck together.

Which was why studying everyone’s files was so important.

Each file had their backstory, which alone stretched for at least fifty pages of memories to build their life around, their personality, their likes and dislikes, and perhaps most importantly, what circumstances would lead them to kill someone.

This was Danganronpa, after all, and all the contestants had to be at least capable of murder. Some would do it on their own, like the serial killer who lurked in every season’s cast, while others would have to be pushed to enormous extremes.

For this (failed) season, a good chunk of the cast could be a problem.

Strangely enough, Korekiyo was the least of Tsumugi’s worries. So long as she avoided drawing his attention, she could avoid being the target of his killing compulsion. Being antisocial was something she knew how to do. There were a lot of other characters that fit his modus operandi, and he’d surely go after one of them before her.

Reading his file, it had taken Tsumugi a while to remember who his writer was: Fujiwara, a meek staff writer who’d been working on the show for almost a decade. Was Korekiyo a sign she was into rope bondage?

She shook that thought out of her head, that didn’t matter any more.

Angie, comparatively, was a far more insidious threat. Her writer had planned for her to be a slow-burn danger, one that would build in intensity the longer the game went on. Separated from her fictional cult, Angie would try to restart it among the students, and resistance could easily lead to violence. Would that be less of a problem, without a Killing Game? Tsumugi didn’t know, but she had to consider the possibility.

Then there was...ugh, Kokichi. The bratty half pint had been written by the new kid on the team, some fresh-faced incel of an intern that Tsumugi had hated from the first second she’d met him. He must have had some connections or blackmail material or something, how else was he getting to write the lingering antagonist character for his first season?

Before the season started, she’d written Kokichi off as a lame Nagito rip-off, mixed with stupid nonsense humor, but now Tsumugi was seeing she’d underestimated him. Given the right events, Kokichi could make for a great villain, one the audience would love to hate, and some of them would just plain love. With no game to keep his mind occupied, who knows what he would do? His file wasn’t actually that helpful for answering that, it looked like it was open-ended on if he really was an evil mastermind or just a liar with an ego.

Last of major note was Maki, one of Akira’s creations. Tsumugi groaned. As usual, he’d made some love interest characters to pair with Tsumugi’s. This was what she got for never just telling him plainly that she was a lesbian. But, failings of her writer aside, Maki looked bland on paper, but the title no one else knew in the Ultimate Academy knew about still scared Tsumugi. 

Ultimate Assassin. It was a skill they rarely gave out, especially considering how easy it would make it for that character to win the whole game. Maki was held back by a logical mind, a ‘wait and see’ approach, and the potential to build empathy with other characters. If she learned Tsumugi was the Mastermind though...

Once Tsumugi had spent...some amount of time, she had lost track...studying the files, she started putting together contingency plans.

Plan A was still to hide among the characters, without any of them realizing who she was.

But if that failed, she needed something to fall back on to save her life. And luckily, she managed to put something together on her Monopad that would do perfectly. If worst came to worst, they’d have to think twice before trying to kill her.

* * *

It had been days since Monokuma had died, and his children had disappeared.

The Killing Game was over, but they weren’t sure what else they could do. The teens still met up every morning, and Kaede was doing her best to rouse them into working together to escape, but more and more apathy faced her.

Still, that was no reason to stop trying. Looking around the room, she asked, “Alright, everyone here?”

“Tsumugi’s still ditching!” Kokichi called out while he leaned back in his chair, feet up on the table. Even to Kaede, it was obvious he was trying to sound like a kid snitching to the teacher.

They went through the meeting, which basically consisted of her asking everyone if they’d thought of anything or seen anything, getting nowhere, and people leaving without checking with her first.

Not that...they had to. It wasn’t like Kaede was their boss.

She just wanted to help get them out...and figure out if some secret Mastermind still lurked among them.

Had Shuichi been wrong about the door?

He was one of the first to leave the meeting, though he’d at least apologized first. More than anyone, he was doing what he could to figure out the mystery of this school, but even the Ultimate Detective was struggling with so few resources.

Looking at Kaito, Kaede told him, “I’m going to try and find Tsumugi.” She hadn’t been to a single morning meeting since the day after Monokuma died, and while Kaede was happy to give her space if she needed it, she was starting to get worried.

“Sounds good! I’m going to talk to Ryoma, see if he’d be up for organizing a fitness routine with everyone to build their spirits!” Kaede...wasn’t completely sure that would work, but she was happy that Kaito was at least trying. He seemed a bit, well, thick-headed, but the Ultimate Astronaut had enough drive and heart that Kaede was happy to have his help keeping the group together.

There were cracks forming already. Miu was isolating herself, Keebo was complaining about losing his ‘inner voice’, and Angie was starting to increase her attempts at recruiting people to Atua’s worship.

Still, they just had to take it one day at a time. Kaede was confident they’d get through this. 

They had to.

* * *

At some point, after finally getting a failsafe working, Tsumugi realized she was having some trouble keeping her eyes open.

Some part of her just wanted to conk out in the lair, but the bed awaiting her in the dorms was worth the walk. With a stretch, she rose up, turned off her Monopad’s display, and went to exit through the girl’s bathroom.

It was lucky timing.

“Tsumugi? Are you in there?” Just after emerging from the secret passway, Kaede started calling into the room from outside, clearly looking for her.

While she could have just gone back inside and left through the library, Tsumugi didn’t want to risk that, and she was too exhausted to wait Kaede out. “I’m right here!” she called back, and before she could leave, Kaede entered, looking relieved.

“There you are! No one had seen you around, and I was starting to get worried.” Hearing her say that made Tsumugi smile, though even that expression felt droopy thanks to her sleep deprivation. In fact, probably because of said condition, it took Tsumugi a lot longer than it usually would have to realize that Kaede was looking at her, concerned. “Tsumugi...are you okay?”

Realizing she might draw suspicion, Tsumugi waved a hand, doing her best to look better than she felt. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” Some part of her did find it sweet how much Kaede seemed to care, though she also couldn’t really be surprised.

After all, Tsumugi was the one who wrote her.

Every season had multiple potential protagonists, and one of them had been given to Tsumugi.

So much stress and time and effort had gone into writing Kaede Akamatsu, but it had been worth every ounce of blood and ink. Because there she was, standing in front of Tsumugi. Her magnum opus.

A protagonist so empathetic, so driven, and so positive that she could bind the disparate characters together, even temporarily, to a common goal. Confident and sexy and capable of so much darkness in the name of light.

Compared to Kaede, Tsumugi had really phoned it in with her other characters for the season, but she didn’t care. Kaede Akamatsu...a perfect character. Deep, but not edgy and grim.

They’d picked a great actress for her, too. A good figure, and the characters’ bright expressions looked so wonderful on that face.

That face...which was looking more concerned than ever. Had...had Kaede been talking to her? Tsumugi cursed her gay heart for being charmed by a fictional character  _ that she wrote _ . “I’m sorry, I guess I am a little out of it,” Tsumugi said, hoping that would cover her fawning gaze.

“That’s okay,” Kaede told her, and there was something in her smile...was that her being flirty? Or was that a product of Tsumugi’s exhausted, hopeful mind? “Why don’t I walk you to your dorm room?” Tsumugi nodded, which made the whole room get real wobbly. Before she could fall, Kaede got under one arm and helped half-carry her across the set.

“Kaede?” she asked, which got the Ultimate Pianist to look at her. “You’re pretty.” There was no reason to tell her that. Tsumugi just had no self-control left in her. If Kaede asked her if she was the Mastermind, she’d probably have admitted to it right then and there.

When Kaede looked at her...it was hard for Tsumugi to remember she was just a character, not a real person like her. It made Tsumugi feel really warm inside, and not just in a ‘girl...hot...’ sort of way. “You’re pretty too, Tsumugi.”

Normally, being complimented, even by someone who wasn’t real, would have been quite the ego boost, but Tsumugi weirdly felt...down. “I’m not. I’m  _ plain _ .” That part of her disguise...hadn’t been too far from who she really was. It was part of why she was chosen, nothing about her stood out enough to make her role in the story obvious.

Soon, they reached the dorms, and Kaede fished Tsumugi’s room key out of her pocket and took her inside. “Here,” Kaede said, lifting the blanket off the bed and helping Tsumugi onto it, even tucking her in.

The bed felt like heaven. True nirvana. It was a miracle she didn’t fall asleep the second her head hit the pillow. But she resisted, just long enough to tell Kaede, “Thank you.”

There wasn’t really any need to do that...Kaede was just doing as she was written. Being a kind, caring character ready to help anyone.

But it still felt right to say, and it was nice hearing Kaede reply, “You’re welcome. I’ll check on you tomorrow,” just before Tsumugi fell unconscious.

That day, Tsumugi slept more than twelve hours, and she had many dreams.

Some were outright nightmares, driven by her fears of what the characters around her could do.

But her better dreams...they were full of soft lips, kind words, and a lilting melody played on a piano.

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably the darkest thing I've ever written. It might not seem like it yet, but...
> 
> Exploring Tsumugi's psychology is going to be fun. For me. I don't know how fun it will be on your end.


End file.
